India’s Union Home Ministry recently rejected Tata Teleservices application for offering BlackBerry Service to world’s second largest country. Apparently the BlackBerry’s security proves a bit “too secure” for the Union Home Ministry’s liking.
The Union Home Ministry wants access to all communications made through a mobile device at any given time, which is not done now in the case of BlackBerry device which works through a server and data is transferred in an encrypted format. As Blackberry does not allow for any interception, the Centre sees this as a security threat, particularly in the current scenario where terrorist organizations are using the Internet to communicate.
What is really interesting is that other Indian telecommunications companies like Bharti Airtel, Vodafone-Essar, and Reliance Communications already offer the BlackBerry in India. It is not yet clear if this ban will only apply to Tata Teleservices, who has already sought a clarification from the Department of Telecommunications as to why they are being singled out, or if other telcos will see an end to their support of the BlackBerry.
A letter from the DoT has gone out to other telcos that currently support the BlackBerry informing them that they will have to provide monitoring facility for lawful interception of data transferred through the device. The big question is how are they going to do this?
[Source]
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crank caller 03.10.08 at 10:43 am
Can you imaging the US government banning blackberies here because they are too secure?
Before you say no I got 2 words for you.
Patriot Act
jhp2 03.10.08 at 12:47 pm
Crank,
You are assuming the NSA can not already break in already!
GBVZ 03.10.08 at 4:39 pm
Well maybe this is a good thing because does it mean that if we call tech support for a BB issue that we won’t have to talk with someone claiming to be named “Brian” and pretending to live in Springfield? haha…
Sorry… I don’t really have anything constructive to say about this post so I figured I’d make light of it…
bluehorseshoe 03.10.08 at 5:17 pm
@ GBVZ
Ditto. You said it all. Although a fan of RIM, I could care less about India and their policy although I understand the point of the article is the security that BB offers. Seems though a double standard is being exercised over there …
TruthSeekerImbecileBreaker 03.10.08 at 6:27 pm
“double standard is being exercised over there …”
Over there?
Think I’m more with “You are assuming the NSA can not already break in already!”
GBVZ 03.10.08 at 8:32 pm
Double standard indeed… I guess that’s a good thing for BB owners though… to be reassured that their security is “too secure” for the tech support central of the world!
Sarah 03.11.08 at 6:40 am
Thats really strange that indian government doesnt support such a professional device and i have the same question that how they can do this???
Robb Dunewood 03.11.08 at 7:19 am
It looks like Research in Motion is trying to work through things with the Indian Government.
“Citing unnamed sources, The Times said that officials from RIM and its Indian operating partners met officials from the Indian Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, along with representatives from the Canadian Embassy, last week to try to prevent a BlackBerry blackout being imposed in India.”
Read
Norman R. 03.11.08 at 7:27 am
A lot of us may not care about India and if they ban the BlackBerry or not, however, if RIM is truly targeting the global market, they absolutely have to care. India is the second biggest country on planet and the number one emerging market.